


The Dose Makes the Poison

by bethagain



Series: December Stories [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 31 Days of Ineffables, Advent Fic, Christmas, Gen, Mistletoe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:53:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21640495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethagain/pseuds/bethagain
Summary: Crowley, Aziraphale, and baby Warlock enjoy an afternoon in the Dowlings' apple orchard, where bright green mistletoe grows on some of the branches.Which brings us to the story of how Crowley invented the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe... But, hey, the fact that the stuff is poisonous isnot his fault!
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale & Warlock Dowling, Crowley & Warlock Dowling
Series: December Stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1561195
Comments: 7
Kudos: 59





	The Dose Makes the Poison

**Author's Note:**

> A fic for the December Good Omens advent challenge, started by @drawlight. 
> 
> I wasn't going to play, but then I kept seeing all these fluffy first-kiss-under-the-mistletoe stories, and I started thinking, what else do I know about mistletoe. And, well, here we are.
> 
> No kisses in this one, but it does get a bit schmoopy by the end.

Warlock was a month shy of two years old and walking with more confidence every day. Nanny Ashtoreth, walking beside him on the way to the garden, had to bend a bit to hold his hand. The brim of her black sun hat tilted down toward the tiny child toddling at her knee.

They were on their way to the orchard, because entertaining a two year old indoors all day is _boring._ Also because Crowley fancied an apple. He’d always been intrigued by the variety of the things, by all the different combinations of tart and sweet. For something that was supposed to be forbidden to humans, God sure did spend a lot of energy coming up with different versions. Something to tempt just about everyone. 

Or maybe She’d simply lost track of them. Crowley had long suspected that the evolution thing had been set into motion and then left to run wild. After all, you had to have a sense of humor to invent the elephant. There was that whole “man plans and God laughs” thing, but privately Crowley wasn’t sure She was actually all that funny.

He also thought it was a bit ridiculous that this one house should have such a huge garden and several dozen apple trees, all for exactly three people.[1] Whose fault _that_ was, he had no idea. Maybe it was just a human thing. Same way some people got to own a Ferrari and some people took the bus.

The apple trees were old, gnarled, and heavy with red fruit. Here and there, a bunch of bright green mistletoe interrupted the shape of a branch, whitish berries standing out against shiny leaves.

Brother Francis, the gardener, was halfway up the nearest tree, feet planted on the middle rung of a ladder and a pair of pruning shears in his hands. 

The angel’s smile was so bright, Crowley wondered what he could possibly be looking at.

“Well, that’s adorable.” Aziraphale waved to Warlock, who stared up at him, mouth open and a bit of drool on his chin. “Holding Nanny’s hand, are you?”

Crowley’s lip curled into a growl. “Don’t have a choice,” he groused back. “He’ll wander off otherwise. Faceplant into a rosebush. Fall down the well.”

“Babies do take some watching,” Aziraphale agreed.

The baby, otherwise known (or so they thought) as the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness, pulled free of Crowley’s hand, lost his balance, and sat down in the grass with a soft thump. He patted the ground with his little palms, found a stray apple leaf, and put it in his mouth.

“Were you wanting a break?” Aziraphale offered. “I can watch him for a while.”

“You just want to teach him good things.”

“Of course I do.”

“Go on then.” Crowley patted Warlock on the head, and the toddler looked up at him with a gummy smile. “I’m getting an apple,” he said to Aziraphale. “You want one?”

Aziraphale crouched down beside Warlock, looking at him earnestly. “Shall we have an apple?” 

Warlock burbled at him. 

“Yes?” He called after Crowley, “Yes, we’ll have two.”

“Kid barely even has teeth yet,” Crowley grumbled, but he took a few moments to wander among the trees, looking for the brightest, best-looking apples. They all looked good, in fact, plump and shiny among healthy green leaves, in spite of the equally lush mistletoe living its parasitic life on the branches.

He wandered back a few minutes later, three perfect apples in his hands. He gave one to Aziraphale, set one in the grass in front of Warlock, and took a bite of the third. It had a nice crunch. Not too sweet, these ones. An appealing sourness in the background.

He used the hand holding the apple to point toward the trees. “You should trim that away,” he told Aziraphale. “The mistletoe. It’s a parasite. Sucks the life right out of them.”

Aziraphale swallowed his own bite of apple. “I suppose I should, but it’s so pretty. And it doesn’t seem to be harming anything.”

Crowley knew that guilty tone. “We’re not supposed to be calling attention to ourselves, Angel.”

Aziraphale shifted his posture. Looked away. Took another bite of apple.

“Angel.”

“Oh all right. Fine. No more miracles. I’ll trim it tomorrow.”

Crowley stretched out on the grass, long legs crossed at the ankles below the demure knee-length skirt. Aziraphale leaned back on his elbows. Between them, Warlock gummed at his apple, tiny front teeth making little furrows through its bright red peel.

“Humans have a thing with mistletoe, don’t they?” Aziraphale said, after a while.

“They do,” Crowley said. 

“A sort of romantic thing, isn’t it?”

“Something like that.” Crowley, in fact, knew all about it, because he was the one who had invented it. 

_300 years earlier_

In a windowless room in one of the middle levels of Hell, a dozen demons sat around a conference table. Its scratched surface was littered with coffee mugs. The mugs were chipped and the coffee was cold. Crowley had made the mistake of adding creamer to his. Clumps of beige powder now floated on top, refusing to dissolve. 

Up above their heads, through layers of stone, earth, and spiritual darkness, horse-drawn carriages rattled along the streets of eighteenth century London. It was late December, the time of year when days were short, weather was cold, and tempers were easily frayed. 

At least Crowley’s chair still had both its arms. That didn’t quite make up, though, for the fact that the adjustable height didn’t adjust anymore. Crowley’s head was six inches lower than it ought to be. To his left, Ligur was six inches taller than he ought to be. On Crowley’s right, a demon whose name he’d never bothered to learn was trying to balance on a seat that was no longer properly attached to its base. 

Beelzebub, Prince of Hell, lounged in the cushy executive chair at the table’s head. Their chair was at the exact right height. Their coffee cup steamed. 

Ligur’s demonic possessions of a dozen housewives had earned a round of applause. Merihem, who had tempted a cook to poison an entire banquet hall, had gotten a nod of approval. 

Crowley was the last to give his report. He sat straighter, trying to make up for the missing six inches. He’d done some good demonic activity this season, really he had. If a few of them were trades with Aziraphale, this crew didn’t need to know. Frame it right, and he’d get credit for tempting a father to go out for tobacco one night and never return. _Never mind that the man was an abusive bastard._

He got full points, too, for leading a man into bigamy, against the marriage vows he’d made before God and man in London’s finest cathedral. _If all three of them are now living together on a farm in northern Scotland, it’s nobody’s business but theirs._ That one wasn’t even part of the Arrangement, it was just Crowley thumbing his nose at Her stupid rules--and breathing a sigh of relief when he got away with it.

He did have one thing he thought they’d genuinely get a kick out of. He thought it was particularly demonic. Right up their alley. “I invented a new Christmas thing.”

Beelzebub took a sip of coffee and leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Go on, demon Crowley.”

Crowley reached into a jacket pocket and drew out a sprig of mistletoe. He had to stifle a giggle. He was really, legitimately proud of this one. “They think it’s a symbol of love!”

He looked around the table, waiting for the response. 

Everyone stared back at him.

“They hang it above their doorways. If two humans stand under it, they have to kiss.”

Beelzebub tilted their head, set down their coffee. “Sszzzoo?”

“So, they think it’s romantic,” Crowley said, a little desperately.

Blank looks.

“It’s poisonous!” He shook the sprig of mistletoe at them. A few berries came loose and bounced their way across the table. “The berries make you sick to your stomach. If you make a tea out of the leaves, you’ll be nauseated. It makes your vision go blurry. Butterflies in your stomach, weak in the knees… Get it?”

They didn’t get it.

He couldn’t help grinning, even then. They’d get it when he told them. “It’s all the symptoms of unrequited love!”

Ligur leaned across Crowley to the demon on his other side, hissed, “I don’t get it.”

“And how,” said Beelzebub, “does that get us new soulszz?”

Crowley set the sprig of mistletoe down on the table. He smoothed the leaves, brushed a finger across the remaining berries. It didn’t. That wasn’t the point. The point was, it was funny. 

Wasn’t it?

“That was very clever, my dear” Aziraphale said, when Crowley finished the story. 

“It’s all right,” Crowley said, “It’s not your thing. You’re all about the requited love, not the other kind.”

“It’s not as though I haven’t seen it. They do get so upset. It’s just like your poison, isn’t it. Not enough to kill them, but it does make them feel like they’re going to--” He trailed off. “Where’s the baby?”

Crowley sat up, looking around wildly. “You said you were watching him!”

“He can’t have gone far.” Aziraphale got to his feet, eyes scanning the grass around them. “Oh,” he said, relieved. “There he is. He’s just playing with the mistletoe.”

Warlock was there beside the nearest apple tree, about twenty meters away, wobbling a bit on his short little legs as he peered at a branch weighed down to the ground with ripe apples. A bright green bunch of mistletoe rested at the level of his head. He reached into it, tiny fingers grabbing a greenish-white berry that immediately went into his mouth. 

Demons can move very quickly when they need to. Crowley crossed the distance at a run, grabbing Warlock and plucking the berry from his mouth. Warlock immediately began to wail. 

Aziraphale snatched the crying toddler from his arms. He whispered something against his hair, and Warlock quieted. “You didn’t have to scare him like that.”

“He was eating the mistletoe!”

“You said it would just make him sick to his stomach.”

“That’s adults,” Crowley groaned, sinking to the ground as though his knees were giving out. “And only if you just eat a little. Higher doses will kill you.” He gestured weakly at Warlock, now sitting calmly in Aziraphale’s arms. “It doesn’t take much to make a big dose for a baby.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale looked horrified. “Why would you-- And they’re using it for Christmas decorations?”

“They were doing it anyway,” Crowley sighed. “I only added the romance part. And I didn’t make it poisonous in the first place,” he added. He pointed upward. “That wasn’t me, that was _Her._ ”

“Well,” Aziraphale said. “Death by poisoning. I suppose that would have been one way to put an end to our problem.”

Crowley reached out and Aziraphale handed Warlock back over. The little boy snuggled up to his Nanny, who bounced him gently against her chest. “I suppose it would have been.” Nanny leaned her head down to look Warlock in the eyes. “You ready to go back to the house now?” 

Warlock giggled back at her. 

Nanny set him on his feet and reached down for a tiny hand. “See you later, Brother Francis.” The two of them walked back across the garden, toward the big house. Nanny had to bend down a bit to hold on to Warlock’s hand, the brim of her black sun hat tilted down toward the little boy toddling by her knee. 

Brother Francis watched them go. Then he crossed the grass back to the orchard, picked up the shears, and began pruning away the mistletoe. 

\----

1 Eleven people, if you counted the staff. Not that the Dowlings ever did.  [return to text ]


End file.
